


I Like You

by placentalmammal



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, I was up late last night and had this revelation like 'oh man perfect pairing', Pale Porn, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, karoxy - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 11:27:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1145424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/placentalmammal/pseuds/placentalmammal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Karkat Vantas, and you have been pale for Roxy LaLonde pretty much since you met her.  Every time you see her your bloodpusher seizes up and you get all these urges to wrap her in blankets and kiss her flat, broad nose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Like You

Your name is Karkat Vantas, and you have been pale for Roxy LaLonde pretty much since you met her. It’s not exactly difficult, there’s just something about her big eyes and crooked smile that inspire the worst sort of pity. According to John, these features make her really human pretty, but you can’t see it. You just think she looks vulnerable and sweet and utterly guileless. Every time you see her your bloodpusher seizes up and you get all these urges to wrap her in blankets and kiss her flat, broad nose.

You didn’t meet Roxy until after you’d sorted out the mess with Gamzee and the Condesce and Aranea and Lord English and dead Jade and John’s shithive maggots possessed dancestor. You spent three human years on the shitty fucking meteor, playing solitaire and suppressing the desire to punch _everyone._ Three years of dream bubbles and anticipation and sloppy troll/human makeouts and penis ouija with Dave. Everything was terrible, but the batshit lunatic nookwhiffing insanity of the new session left you longing for the soul-sucking monotony of life on the meteor.

And then you met Roxy.

You met Roxy, and _holy shit_ , why _do_ birds suddenly appear? You took one look at her ridiculous hair (tightly curled and sticking out from her head in all directions and in _desperate_ need of a good brushing) and her ridiculous chipped nail polish and the ridiculous gap between her front teeth, and you believed in palemance at first sight.

You were gonna pap that. _You were gonna pap that so hard_

And even though you were pale for her from the moment you laid eyes on her, you didn’t do shit about it for weeks. It was partially because there was so much else going on what with the creation of a new universe and partially because she already had a moirail. Or at least, that’s what you assumed Dirk was. John tried to explain it (“they’re siblings, Karkat! Like me and Jade!”) but the concept of human lusus-sharing has never made sense to you. You’ve never understood it and you never will. All you really got out of the conversation was that Dirk wasn’t actually Roxy’s moirail and that meant you had a free pass to mack on her. Palely, of course.

She’s John’s matesprit, and John is one of your best friends, so the three of you hang out a lot. And both of them, bless their bloodpushers ( _hearts_ , you remind yourself, _humans call them hearts_ ) are willing to watch rom coms with you and listen to you explain the intricacies of troll romance. No one else is willing to do that with you, and you come very close to holding her hand on two separate occasions.

You spend most of your free time (and you have a _lot_ of free time) cringing at your own ineptitude. You, Karkat Vantas, are a veritable _god_ of romance, and you’re so fucking pale for this human girl that you can’t even tell her. You’re not some idiot wiggler drunk off hormones and their own clownish incompetence, but something about Roxy makes you all flustered and twisty inside. Maybe some tiny part of your brain is hoping that if you spend enough time acting like a stupid, palesick fuck wagon, she’ll take pity on _you_ and make the first move. The entire line of thought makes you want to punch past, present, and future you right in their stupid, drooling faces.

Roxy doesn’t seem to notice, though. She lets you brush her hair once (and you do a really shitty job and the brush gets all tangled in her corkscrew curls and you almost _die_ of embarrassment, but she just laughs). And the next time she paints her nails, she offers to do yours, too! And if matching pink, glittery manicures don’t just _scream_ “palemance,” then you don’t know what does. She takes your hand in hers and paints your claws so sweetly and gently that you _swoon_.

You come to the conclusion that you are a pathetic sack of shit on a nightly basis, but it doesn’t stick until nearly a full perigee after you first begin this shambling mockery of a pale courtship. You remember something Eridan said once about screwing your courage to the sticking place (you think he was quoting Troll Katy Perry, because no way was he eloquent enough to come up with something like that on his own) and you decide that tonight is the night. You will tell Roxy about how embarrassingly, shamefully pale you are for her and her crookedly winged eyeliner and her messy hair or you will literally light yourself on fire and throw yourself off the nearest cliff.

Literally.

You don’t think your plan through all the way because she is asleep when you burst through her door. Now that you’re on an actual planet with actual days and nights, everyone’s starting to backslide into their natural sleeping patterns. But you forgot, because you are a dumb shit idiot, and you might light yourself on fire anyway.

As if the whole situation isn’t awkward and terrible enough as is, you swear very loudly when you walk through the door and realize she’s asleep.

“Karkat?” She sits up halfway, pushes her kitty-cat eye mask up over her forehead. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I’m an idiot. I’m going to light myself on fire.”

“What? Oh. No, don’t do that, I’d miss you.”

She doesn’t seem as pissed as you’d be if you would be if someone barged into your respiteblock in the middle of the day, but that might just be because she’s _Roxy_ and she’s a fucking human saint.

She’s sitting all the way up now, staring at you. “What’s going on?”

“I uh, I just needed to talk to you. But it can wait-”

“You are so _loud,_ ” she says, conversationally and you realize she’s absolutely, 100% correct. You flinch at your own horribleness and lower your voice to a stage whisper.

“It’s nothing. It can wait ‘til morning.” Assuming you haven’t lit yourself on fire by then.

She shrugs. “I’m awake. Might as well get it over with.”

You take a deep breath. This is it. This is what it’s all been building up to.

“Roxy,” you say, “I _like_ you.”

It’s such a relief to finally say it that it’s kind of anticlimactic.

“Oh,” she says, very quietly. “Oh.”

Your bloodpusher drops into your bilesacs. You decide that you are _definitely_ lighting yourself on fire, melodrama be damned. You turn and prepare to abscond, but she stops you.

“Karkat, wait- do you like me, or do you _like_ like me?”

You have spent a perigee watching rom coms with John and Roxy, but they’ve also made you watch some human rom coms. You are suddenly infinitely grateful for that experience, because without it, you wouldn’t realize that what she’s essentially using human vocabulary to ask which quadrant you’re after.

You let out a sigh of relief. “I like you, Roxy. I like you a lot.”

She smiles at that, exposing the little gap between her teeth and your bloodpusher surges with joy. “I like you too, Karkat,” she says. “A lot.”

The two of you stare at one another for a moment, happy and excited and suddenly unsure of yourselves. You’d only planned as far as your passionate confession, and you have no idea what to do now. This is Roxy’s first palemance, so you should take the lead, but you’re kind of paralyzed just looking at her, thinking about how much you want to pap her sweet, heart-shaped face.

She yawns and pats the space next to her on the bed. “C’mere,” she says. “I’m sleepy. We can cuddle.”

Your brave foray into human rom coms has taught you that cuddling is essentially the human equivalent of piling. You’re suddenly worried that this is all moving too quickly. You only just told her that you like her and now she wants to pile? But you have been pale flirting for fucking _weeks_ , so maybe you’ll just count all of that as the foreplay? Maybe you’re just a dirty, dirty pale slut. At any rate, the bed looks wonderfully soft and inviting, and you collapse into it next to her.

Approximately two seconds after you fall into bed with Roxy, you realize that it's too narrow to comfortably fit both of you. You kind of have to press up against her, and it’s awkward, except she’s so fucking warm and she’s smiling like a loon and you give into temptation and pap her. She giggles and paps you back, and you’re shooshing and papping like a couple of four-sweep-old wigglers during their first sleepover. It’s childish and stupid and you can’t stop yourself laughing.. _This_ is what moiralliegiance is supposed to be.

It takes the two of you a few minutes to settle. The bed isn’t big enough and between the two of you, you have four elbows too many. You don’t quite fit together, but that’s okay. There’ll be time for that later. Roxy falls asleep as soon as the two of you hit on a comfortable position. She doesn’t even bother to pull her eye mask down over her face, it’s still up on her forehead, making her hair stick up at a funny angle. You adjust it for her, sliding it back down into place, and she smiles in her sleep. You kiss her nose, and it’s as wonderful as you’d hoped it would be, and then you lay your head against her chest. It’s the middle of the night and you’re wide awake, but she’s sound asleep with her arms around her, and you can’t bring yourself to disturb her again. You’re just fine where you are, with your whispervent pressed up against her. You realize you can hear her bloodpusher working, quietly _thump thump thump_ ing as it circulates her blood in her veins. You listen for a while, marveling at the delicacy of the human body, humbled to hear Roxy’s heart ( _heart, not bloodpusher_ ) beating.

She trusts you, trusts you implicitly, and the realization makes your eyes well up with tears. You’re not really sure why you’re crying, except that you’re safe and happy, and everyone you love is safe and happy. You do your best to muffle your sobs, but Roxy stirs in her sleep. Without waking, she reaches out and paps you, mumbles a half-articulate shoosh, and then starts snoring.

And you, you’re just so fucking pale for her that your own heart damn near bursts.


End file.
